Thrive Center
Blog Articles
Youth
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Adolescents and Spirituality: Do Mountaintop Spiritual Experiences Really Make a Difference?
A Thrive Scholars Fellow shares transcendent experiences along with caring adults can stimulate spirituality and virtue development in youth.
Emotions
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The Power of Positive Emotions: Pursuing Awe
Awe is a powerful positive emotion. Dr. Susan Mangan explains how pursuing awe can build resilience through difficulty.
Spirituality
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Transcendence (Part 2): How Transcendence Can Lead the Way to an Open Heart
Believing in Something Greater Than Ourselves is an integral part of our spiritual health.
Spirituality
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Transcendence (Part 1): The Beauty of Transcendence and How it Informs our Spirituality
Our minds are designed to receive loving transcendent experiences. Learn more in this post and try some practices.
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Take a Breath: How Breath Work Provides a Portal to Our Spiritual Lives
“…then the Lord God formed the human from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life’ and the human became a living being.” Genesis 2:7 The gospels don’t describe Jesus’ first breath. What they do tell us is that he was born, and that he lived among us. God became flesh and bone, experiencing the pleasures and pains of embodied life. The story of Jesus’ life is also about his sacrifice and the moment when he breathed his last. According to Luke 44:46, “Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into...
Emotions
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Growing Forward: Questions to Promote Love and Meaning
If you want to train your brain out of anxiety and/or discover more about yourself, find a trusted friend or small group and work through these questions
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Life off Autopilot (Part 2): The Complexities of Activating into Purpose
When we know that finding purpose is so important for our spiritual health and wellbeing, why is it sometimes so hard?
Agility
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A Practice: Observing the Body for Understanding
A daily spiritual practice focusing on embodied emotions provides insight into what matters most and informs purpose.
Meaning
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Questions to Promote Love and Meaning
Thinking through paths out of anxiety and fear If it rings true for you that you need to train your brain to tone down anxiety and/or discover more about yourself – your sources of love and mattering, and your purposes – find a trusted friend or loved one or a small group and work through some of these questions together. Getting in touch with love: What are your fundamental beliefs about being loved–for just who you are? Not what you do, but just who you are now? Pause. Close your eyes, take 3 slow breaths–imagine God is looking...
Emotions
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Want to become more present, healthy, and connected? Pay attention to your body (Part 2)
Our emotions are linked to how we make meaning of our lives, and attending to our embodied emotional selves leads to spiritual health.